


Front Lines, Back Channels

by Erisabesu (ErisabesuFic)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Military, Angst, Closeted, Consenting Adults, Drama, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Special Ops, Strippers & Strip Clubs, brief mentions of hetero activity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:13:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErisabesuFic/pseuds/Erisabesu
Summary: “The picture of a pink-haired sweetheart in his wallet is only one layer of cover.”  [2009.06.12]
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Uzumaki Naruto, past Kakashi/Obito, past SNS
Comments: 16
Kudos: 81





	Front Lines, Back Channels

**“Front Lines, Back Channels”**

♦

Thirty miles down the highway from Fort Bragg looks the same as everywhere else in southeast North Carolina, but any restless soldier knows exactly where to go to find the temporary paradise an average tourist will miss.

Nestled in-between more backwater countryside and winding two-lane roads are a pair of establishments that straddle a bend not too far from a major highway. One has music blaring and blinking neon signs beckoning to every hot blooded male in need of entertainment and companionship, with a parking lot full of Humvee’s, pick-up trucks, and low riding muscle cars. Across from it, just a short walk across the asphalt and up a slope of crabgrass, sits the typical don’t-ask-don’t-tell Motel, with rooms for the hour or for the night for fifteen bucks cash. Most of them go for the hour. Most of them empty in less.

On New Year’s Eve, _Babydoll Vixens_ is packed from wall to wall with males of all shapes and sizes, over half of them sporting the typical “high and tight” haircut that marks them as Fort Bragg’s finest. The locals don’t consider this a problem since the girls don’t differentiate; dollar bills are dollar bills, and on a festive night like this one there’s plenty of girls and beers to go around, as well as the greenbacks that keep ’em coming in a steady, hedonistic flow.

Naruto sits near the front stages at the usual table with his buddies from Special Forces. They’re a group easy to pick out from the rest of the soldiers packing the joint, their eyes roving the crowd every so often on well-trained instinct—pupils hollowed and empty as gun barrels—before snapping back to the livelier human indulgences at hand, bottles of alcohol and full ashtrays littering the table. Special Forces guys usually keep to their own, and nobody objects. But on a night like this, the lines between specialty and rank get blurred, and it’s hard for anyone to resist Naruto’s trademark smile, warm with mischief and setting all around him at ease. Tonight he doesn’t hold back this particular ability, flashing his pearly teeth and laughing so that guards lower and shoulders relax. A regular golden boy.

Naruto watches the clock, more than ready to be somewhere else with someone else. But this is part of the deal too—nobody can suspect. Nobody can see him here tonight, clinking mugs with the guys and flirting with the girls, and think for even a second that anything counterfeit hides behind those limpid blues. The picture of a pink-haired sweetheart in his wallet is only one layer of cover. Besides that, his easy comfort in these surroundings must be convincing, naked women dancing on stage, others coming around to straddle his leg and tempt him into paying off their Christmas debts. No aversion can show, no matter how close to the surface it kicks.

So he grins and whispers tawdry things into pierced ears, tucking dollars into garters and winking at his mates in the perfect act. He knows what happens to those who get caught and branded an illegal soldier. And there’s more than one reason why his codename is Fox.

He sees the skinny blonde everyone knows for his favorite coming towards him at last, and he downs his beer and gives his friends the characteristic eyebrow waggle that means he’s leaving them for lovelier company than their shit-ugly faces. She comes over and drapes bony arms around his neck from behind, and he pulls her right into his lap and makes her giggle before burying his face in her cleavage, getting the guys to hoot and holler obscenities. He’s breaking the first and foremost rule of any strip joint—hands off the merchandise—but he’s worked hard to earn such leniency, so none of the bouncers stop him. They still watch his every move, as they should. Not that it matters. In another smooth motion Naruto stands and picks the stripper up, carrying her off into the back with his teammates whistling after him.

The private room is dimly lit, but hardly private; several other guys are in various shadowy corners in chairs with women undulating in their laps. Naruto backs the blonde into the wall and she hooks her leg around his thigh, dangling one impossibly spike-heeled shoe from a narrow foot while he gets out a ten spot and crushes it into her hand. She kisses him then, a teasing taste of what else she can provide, and it’s not all that bad. Enough people see it that he can let her lead him to an empty chair and continue with the expected sequence of events. Ten minutes here and then they can slip off for the Motel, and the thought speeds his pulse far more than the feel of her weight in his lap, or her small breasts grinding into his chest. He hooks his fingers under the seat of the chair, standard operating procedure for any lapdance anywhere.

She’s good at being a decoy, she’s one of the few that’s not an addict, and he’s glad he picked her. She might not be the top moneymaker of this particular establishment, but he likes that everyone looks at her like something valuable when she’s with him, and he’s glad his reputation seems to keep her from getting roughed up—the other girls aren’t so lucky.

She watches the time—he’s not expected to have enough blood left in his head to do it—and when the ten minutes are up she leans in and asks him what all the girls ask back here, setting up the more profitable assignation across the street. He answers the way he always does, and they split for the moment, him going back out to the crowded floor for his jacket and more knuckle-bumps with his boys, while she gets her coat and oversized bag and meets him across the street.

In a way, all this deception is easier than the stuff he does running Special Ops. Nobody nearby has the strength or skills to endanger his life, and therefore none of them are the kind of slippery criminals and malfeasants likely to appear on his target list.

Then again, any man with enough prejudice or hatred can become the most brutal of enemies. And Naruto knows without a doubt that the guys who train beside him on a regular basis and watch his back through thick and thin would be the first to cut off his privates and shove them down his throat, just for doing what he’s about to do.

The blonde charges twenty bucks an hour, but he pays her a hundred for the night in advance and then buys the room. They go inside and she cranks up the heater and flops down on the bed, turning on the TV and surfing to find the countdown coverage in Time’s Square. Naruto uses the toilet and chews a tictac from the container in his jacket pocket.

Before he leaves, he goes over and kisses her temple. “Thanks, babe.”

“Say hello to your married lady for me,” she teases, reciting the lie he made her believe six months back.

“Not a chance,” he chuckles.

He puts the room key in his back pocket, and slips out onto the unlit sidewalk, his charming and boyish smile melting into the face he wears on missions. He takes a deep breath, cold air biting his lungs.

There are several reasons they chose this place after being reassigned to Fort Bragg. The Motel is one long rectangle with parking spaces that butt up against the dark sidewalk, four or five of them filled with cars. There are lights up by the Motel’s front desk, but the rest of the place is cloaked in shadows, perfect cover for him to move in silence along the row of windows to the one that’s marked in a way only someone with his training would notice. The sign’s meant for him, and only him—nobody else would find it even if they looked.

Naruto knocks, and waits for the sound of the knob turning; he won’t hear footsteps or anything else that would give away the identity of the person inside. A moment later he can feel one eye peering at him through the peephole, making sure of who he is, and that he’s come alone. Naruto looks straight back, nerves taut and heart pounding in anticipation.

The door cracks open and Naruto slips through and then closes it behind him with his boot so the automatic lock clicks in place. He hooks the chain and then faces his superior, his partner in crime.

“You’re late, Fox.”

“I know.”

Naruto grabs him right there in front of the door before he can move away, holding on tight. On his right he can see the Major’s Class A uniform hanging in the closet on two hangers, which explains why the body he’s holding is already naked. Kakashi’s hat is centered on the shelf above the hangers, and Naruto smirks; he would bet a hundred bucks that the man’s glossy shoes are on the floor underneath, with a carefully rolled sock inside each, maybe lined up next to a briefcase, everything in the exact right place.

But he’s not interested in shoes at the moment, or anything other than turning his mouth to his Commanding Officer’s neck and sucking his way over to those thin, ruthless lips he’s craved for the last two months—and that’s when his tongue finds the extra chain leading to a secondary set of dog tags strung around the man’s neck. Naruto pulls back, touching the warmed metal plates with his fingers to confirm.

He can’t quite hide the anger held tight in his voice. “What the hell is this?”

Kakashi pushes away, flicking on the dome light in the entryway, and then he walks over to the bed, stripped of its cheap bedding down to negligibly cleaner sheets. He lounges into the mattress, pillows propped against the headboard like they must have been while he waited over the last hour. The nightstand has lubricant and a string of condoms within easy reach, eliminating any doubt as to why they’re here.

Naruto glares, coming forward to where the room opens out in the typical rectangle, shifting his weight to one leg. “I thought you weren’t going to bring those anymore. What gives?”

“Take off your shirt.”

Naruto squares his shoulders, lip curled, defiant. Lets Kakashi see just what he thinks of those orders.

“What’s the matter Fox? Got something you don’t want me to see?”

Naruto knows what this is about. Sees it plain as an enemy forehead caught in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle.

He unbuckles his belt, then flicks the button on his jeans and lowers the zipper, showing the red cotton of his boxers. “There’s one thing I’ve got that I know you’re dying to see.”

Kakashi’s eyes dip down, then move back up, revealing nothing.

Naruto moves to the foot of the bed, and shrugs out of his jacket. He pulls off his t-shirt in a slow tease of hard muscle and smooth, freckled skin, and tosses it to the ground, watches Kakashi’s eyes on him, pleased to see them darken and fill with lust hotter than a grenade squeezed tight in a bare hand, pin clenched between the teeth and the countdown starting.

Naruto hooks his finger in the chain around his neck, shows the single pair of tags clinking together. He cocks his head, knows it’s immature, but says it anyways.

“Surprised?”

Kakashi lifts one brow, eyes narrowing.

Naruto plants a knee on the bed, slinking forward on his hands, boots still on because he knows the noise of them dragging on the bed linens will annoy Kakashi and he makes a point to get a rise out of him whenever he can, here in this place where they’re just two men and he doesn’t have to salute. The heater is on full blast, but his skin still prickles from the abrupt change of cold to hot and the feel of the mixed air currents circling the badly insulated room. Naruto pushes Kakashi’s raised knee out of the way, crawling overtop of him; he stops when the dog tags hanging from his neck brush the skin inches above Kakashi’s navel in an indirect caress.

“Your wingman died, and died badly. I get that.” Naruto bends forward, licks a wet line between Kakashi’s nipples, a horizontal sweep below the splay of tags on the man’s chest. “But I won’t allow you to bring him into bed with you. Not while I’m in it.”

Kakashi reaches for Naruto’s tags and yanks him closer. “What do you care, Fox?”

“You think I don’t care?” Naruto swats his hand away and leans back on his knees, returning the Major’s intense glare. “Bullshit.”

Kakashi sits up and in the same motion shoves his index finger into Naruto’s sternum, hand curled and thumb upright in the mockery of a gun. They face off, eye to eye, nose to nose.

“Who’s the real liar here?”

“Fuck you.” Naruto seethes, jaw clenching. “You wanna talk about this shit right now? Fine—I admit it. I wear Hawk’s tags, sometimes. You caught me in the showers a week ago, so you already know I get them out from time to time, same as you. It’s not a crime—it was fucking Christmas Eve, for Christ’s sake—and you’re not the only one who’s lost a precious teammate, Scarecrow. So quit acting like you know everything!”

Kakashi lifts his hand, cocks it back and mimes pulling the trigger. “Then you understand things perfectly, Fox. What’s there to complain about?”

Naruto tumbles them backwards into the pillows, his hips lodged in-between Kakashi’s legs. Kakashi arches underneath him, breath hot on his throat.

“Take them off,” Naruto growls, teeth working Kakashi’s nipple into a tight point. “ _Now_.”

Kakashi’s hands dig into the back of Naruto’s neck, tangling in his overgrown blond hair. “What for?”

Naruto slips a hand between their bodies and pushes his boxers down, fitting their naked cocks together and palming them. “Take them off,” Naruto growls again, staring right into Kakashi’s eyes.

“What _difference_ would it make?”

Naruto goes still, and Kakashi doesn’t even blink.

Naruto levels another glare. “Maybe you better tell it to me plain.”

Kakashi chuckles, but the noise is sad, defeated. Unusually bitter. “Why pretend, Fox? You and me—we’re empty. Haunted by ghosts from the past that will never let go. They ate us up and left nothing behind, so whether we wear their mementos or not—all that’s left for us is this momentary respite from incurable grief.”

“Fuck _that_.” Naruto scowls, elbows locked and body hovering above Kakashi’s. “You think you can push me away now, you’ve got it wrong, Scarecrow. Spout all the doom and gloom you want, but it’s bullshit, and you know it.”

Kakashi’s jaw stiffens in a warning signal.

Naruto ignores it. “Sure it hurts. It kills. I know it does—I loved Hawk and he’s _gone_ , the fucking bastard. But that’s how we’re alike, you and me.” Naruto looks into Kakashi’s steel grey eyes to make sure he has the man’s full attention. “You want to quit this? Then why’d you come, huh? Why go to the trouble? You could’ve stayed back on post wearing your jacket full of medals and gold braid, drinking champagne with the other officers, but instead you’re here with one of your subordinates, ready to commit acts of indecency that could get you dishonorably discharged at best and murdered in the most brutal and humiliating way by fellow officers at worst.”

Kakashi’s brows meet above his eyes. “Same goes for you, Fox—branded homosexuals in Special Forces get it worst of all.”

“So what,” Naruto presses his lips tight. “I know the risks. So do you. There’s a reason why it’s not going to stop us, too. Need me to say it?”

“You’re too reckless, Fox.”

“Yeah, well, I’m all you’ve got now. And you’re all I’ve got. We’re stuck with each other forever, just like we’re stuck with those _fucking_ ghosts.” His voice cracks at the end, and Naruto curses again under his breath.

Kakashi holds Naruto’s gaze, and doesn’t say anything for a while. Eventually Naruto leans his weight to one side, touching the clear rubber silencers along the edges of Kakashi’s tags.

“It’s a question of respect, Scarecrow. They don’t belong here.”

Kakashi doesn’t answer. He tries to move Naruto’s hand away but Naruto shakes him off, reaching back to flip one of the tags over on Kakashi’s chest so they can both see the name.

“I never asked you to forget him, did I?”

The TV blares from the room next door, announcing only five minutes left to midnight, and Naruto closes his eyes.

“Forget it,” Naruto says. “I pissed you off last week, you piss me off tonight—we’re even. Let him watch if you want to, it won’t make any difference. Because as soon as this conversation is over you’ll only be thinking about _me_.”

“Bold words, Fox.”

Naruto moves in for a kiss. “And I never go back on them.”

Kakashi meets his mouth with a tilt of his head, and Naruto plunders accordingly, a kiss that sears, both angry and heartfelt. The frustration from the months apart—and the acute sense of loss and loneliness brought on by the season—rises like a knee-jab to the gut. It takes Naruto back all the way to the beginning when everything was new between them, frantic and desperate, and spiced with the forbidden. And yet there’s nothing unfamiliar about the way their bodies move and fit together in this embrace, or the way Kakashi kisses back, hungry and thorough and somehow dominant all the same.

Naruto presses him down into the mattress, buries him with the slickness of tongues and the thunder of pulses beating hot and fast behind the prisons of their ribs. Kakashi’s mouth is brutal and unyielding, his hands digging into Naruto’s shoulders like they can pull him apart and touch every secret insecurity, flush out every hidden longing. Naruto doesn’t fight it; for so long, Kakashi has been the only one who understands, an older version of the same neglected orphan who found solace in the grip of a .357 Magnum and purpose in the bullet holes pock-marking the center of a paper outline.

Mirrored pasts, mirrored losses, mirrored futures. Thrice bound by death, life, and the guilt of those who survive. Naruto _refuses_ to let anything come between them—not with everything they’ve risked, everything they’ve shared, and everything they’ve meant to each other.

Kakashi groans and scrapes fingers down the dip of Naruto’s back, shoving his hand underneath both jeans and boxers so he can grip that round butt and pull him in closer. Naruto hooks Kakashi’s leg over his left arm and rocks their bodies together, cocks hard and dripping with pent-up release.

“Take off your boots,” Kakashi orders, voice changed into a breathier version that barely matches the original.

Naruto chuckles into Kakashi’s neck, nibbling down from his ear. “Turn over,” he counters, lowering his voice into that primal, guttural timbre of a man on the verge of doing many sinful things.

Kakashi growls, rotating his leg above Naruto’s head and twisting his lower body to the side, showing off his ass in an impressive display of flexibility. Naruto’s pulse skips a beat, and he grabs for the lubricant on the nightstand, fumbling with the lid.

_Fuck_. Naruto shakes his head to clear it, feeling all worked up, and for good reason. He manages to slick two fingers and begins to work them in, rubbing and circling a fingertip at the entrance before pressing past the barrier and feeling Kakashi tighten on instinct.

Naruto snakes a hand to fondle Kakashi’s cock and watches him grimace, but a moment more and both his fingers curve inside to make gentle thrusts. Kakashi bares his teeth and Naruto swallows, wanting to draw this out more but unable to resist the urgency brought on by the thirty-second countdown to midnight audible from the TV next door.

“ _Fox._ ”

It’s all Kakashi says, but Naruto shudders and swipes the string of condoms, pulling one free with his teeth and wrestling it out of the package with one hand. He slides it down his length and pulls his fingers free, and then Kakashi squirms against him.

“Wait,” Kakashi says, reaching for the dog tags around his neck.

Naruto watches, surprised when Kakashi yanks the second set free—and then he feels _angry_. Why the fuck should they hide?

“Don’t.” Naruto grabs for Kakashi’s fist and closes his fingers around it, trapping the memento inside their right hands.

Kakashi jerks his arm, but Naruto holds him fast, and then guides his cock forward, tip pressing into Kakashi’s ass. Kakashi goes still, breath held suspended in his lungs. And then Naruto moves and slowly sinks all the way to the hilt.

Naruto’s blood beats in his ears, pounding so quick compared to the controlled movements he makes while there’s so much friction. Kakashi’s thighs tense and Naruto bends forward, squeezing their hands tighter together so he can’t get away. But Kakashi only untwists and shifts his torso into better alignment and Naruto sighs, able to gather the right momentum and make it better for them both. Kakashi groans into the mattress.

Next door, the TV begins the final countdown, and Naruto thrusts in earnest. He meets with no resistance, Kakashi’s fist held down by his, their bodies jerking in a driving rhythm that is everything harsh and male and somehow beautiful despite.

The sequence of numbers descends, muffled syllables on the other side of the wall echoed by their aroused, panting breaths. Neither of them reaches their climax at exactly midnight, but rather in the tens of seconds afterwards when the cheers welcoming in the New Year are still deafening and chaotic and appropriate to the rush.

Kakashi pushes up on his elbows and rears back into Naruto’s body for an intensity of depth and force that sends him over the precipice, but not before he pulls Naruto down with him. There’s no parachute, no crash; just a dizzying sense of freefall before the Motel wallpaper comes back into focus and brings them back to this present time and place, fully satisfied for the space of ten breaths, ten minutes if they’re lucky.

Naruto shakes the sweat from his forehead, and moves so Kakashi will be more comfortable, pausing to toss the condom in the waste basket. Lastly, he unwraps his hands from Kakashi’s.

Kakashi shifts over onto his back and stretches out his legs. He uncurls his fingers from the dog tags and they both see the deep red ridges engraved temporarily in his skin from the edges. Without the rubber silencers they would have cut through his hand. Deep.

Kakashi looks up at Naruto. Naruto meets his eyes, and says nothing.

After a long moment, Kakashi holds them out to Naruto. “Would you be so good as to put these over on the nightstand?”

Naruto frowns, taking them. He looks at the stamped letters, wondering for the zillionth time what the guy’s codename was. He doesn’t have enough security clearance yet to look it up. And Kakashi has never told him.

Naruto won’t ask this time either. He leans over and sets the tags carefully on the other side of the lamp where they’re not liable to get dirtied or lost. Then he stretches out on his side next to Kakashi, pants and underwear bunched around his thighs, boots still securely laced on his large feet.

Kakashi tucks his hands behind his head. “You know, Fox.”

“Hmm.” Naruto can’t help reaching over to trace lines down Kakashi’s chest and stomach, indulging as long as Kakashi doesn’t seem inclined to stop him. He won’t be able to do it again for quite some time.

“When I first read your file, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

Naruto frowns. “Why’s that?”

“Consistent trouble with authority, below average marks in academics; everything there said you were a problem kid, albeit one who could shoot a gun pretty well, and who had an uncanny ability to succeed despite your superior’s expectations.”

Naruto doesn’t like to dwell on that part of his history with the US Army. “That was a long time ago, Scarecrow.”

Kakashi is quiet for a minute, watching the hand drawing targets around his navel. “I don’t think it was your write-ups or your GPA that made the other Captains wary of granting your request for Special Forces—it was your photograph.”

Naruto frowns harder. “My photo?”

“You looked exactly like every other angry orphaned kid with rampant instability, a kid who might snap under the pressures of special assignments and get himself along with everyone else killed.”

Naruto remembers back to that time, nothing but years of starvation and struggle, hungering for any little scrap of attention or affection he could get. He lets the memory slide back away.

“What did you see?”

Kakashi sighs. “I saw the same thing.”

Naruto stills his hand, palm ghosting over Kakashi’s jutting hip bone. “So then… why’d you agree to let me be under your command?”

“I also saw how your eyes burned with a hunger to be recognized, and the willingness to do whatever it would take to get that recognition. I saw a kid who would never give up, and who needed someone to point him in the right direction and get him into shape.”

“Is that why you were so tough on me?” Naruto cocks his head, rolling his eyes.

“There were many other reasons, but yes. I thought I could put you where you needed to be to grow up.”

“You paired me with Hawk,” Naruto comments. Then he shakes his head, mouth wry. “God, he hated me.”

“He did.” Kakashi’s voice is unusually gentle. “And he learned a lot from you too.”

“Not enough,” Naruto answers.

The room is quiet, silence settling over them for a time. Kakashi sits up and tugs one of Naruto’s legs closer, picking at the laces of his boot. Naruto watches the process, Kakashi removing one boot and then the other, finally tugging his jeans and underwear off, and tossing them to the floor.

“I felt I knew what you needed, Fox, because so much about you reminded me of myself,” Kakashi says.

“You, the infamous Special Ops genius?” Naruto smirks. “I’m good, but not that good.”

Kakashi’s mouth quirks up on one side. “And yet look at you _now_.”

Naruto freezes, eyes flicking up to Kakashi’s face.

Kakashi gives a little shrug. “I look at you now and think that maybe _I’m_ the one who learned from you, from the very beginning. I see what you accomplish on high risk missions without losing who you are in the process, and think that maybe this was the best place for you to come into your own—no. That maybe Special Forces is all the better _because of you_.”

Naruto can’t think of anything to say; it’s so rare for Kakashi to open up and say anything close to this; it’s too much.

Kakashi looks down at his hand splayed on the mattress between them. “I’ve never once doubted my decision to let you on my team.”

Naruto’s throat tightens, and he flings an arm across his eyes just in case. “Jeez, Scarecrow. You’re scaring me here. Starting to sound like an old man.”

Kakashi chuckles, and Naruto feels the other man’s weight shifting on the mattress. “Say that again when I’m through with you.”

Naruto blinks open his eyes and Kakashi slides in-between his legs and slowly bends his knees back to his ears, feet up over his head.

“Hey!” Naruto protests, alarmed by the sudden vulnerability.

“It’s a new year, Fox,” Kakashi smirks, guiding Naruto’s hands to the backs of his knees in a wordless instruction to hold his legs in exactly that position.

“So?”

“So I’m going to test the limits and endurance of your flexibility.” Kakashi meets his gaze, eyes dark and serious, and unmistakably aroused.

Naruto watches Kakashi reach for the lubricant and set it nearby. He gulps. “Do I have any say in this at all?”

“Indulge this old man, Fox,” Kakashi replies, mildly.

His hands begin a careful exploration that ignites Naruto’s whole body within seconds.

“Y-you’re only thirty-nine,” Naruto stammers, eyelids fluttering closed from all the careful and expertly administered sensations. “N-not old at all.”

“I appreciate that, Fox.” Kakashi bends forward to lick up the underside of Naruto’s cock, then blows cool air over the taut skin. “Now just relax…”

Naruto has no other choice but complete surrender.

Kakashi is a man who is good at everything, which explains the prestige of his rank and command of the top operatives in the Army’s Special Forces. It’s also no surprise that in this extreme position Naruto ends up coming on one side of his own face. He suspects this is partly Kakashi’s revenge for the haste of their first round, which isn’t exactly fair as he was the one who provoked the argument in the first place.

But Naruto takes the opportunity to make up for it in the next two rounds, especially in their last time in the shower when the sky is streaked with the first graphite hints of dawn, and soon the Major must be on his way.

Naruto dresses Kakashi in his uniform one article at a time, insisting on handling every last detail since he didn’t get the pleasure of undressing him. His hands are gentle but deft; Kakashi doesn’t let on, but finds the process endearing. He watches, wistful, the same thought held suspended in both their minds:

Somehow they will get to do this all again. They both have to believe it.

Naruto kisses him, long and hard, before combing his fingers through Kakashi’s silver hair and fitting his hat into place. The last moments are never easy, but always the most special—up until they both shut down their weaknesses like the good soldiers they are, eyes distant and expressions reserved. Kakashi extends his hand and they shake.

Naruto is always the first to leave. He slips out without a word and re-enters the room with the blonde stripper, her small body tucked in a ball under the blankets.

He wakes her gently, and they go together across the street to the parking lot of her workplace. Naruto walks her to her car, and sees that it starts up in the chill of the morning before climbing into his Humvee and finding a gas station with coffee before driving the thirty miles back to Fort Bragg.

Kakashi waits in the room for another forty minutes, sitting on the edge of the remade bed in his full uniform, a set of dog tags looped in his hand with a broken chain. Then he leaves the Motel and climbs into a sedan parked two spaces down, heading for the highway that will take him up north to DC to spend his three days of leave playing golf with a few Generals and their wives, as expected of any Major in line for promotion.

He’d rather be doing other things, but Kakashi smiles—and knows that in time, Naruto will be part of that circle too, the finest Special Ops Captain he’s ever mentored.

“Don’t you think, Obito?”

Kakashi rests one hand on the steering wheel and the other inside the pocket of his uniform slacks, fingers curled around a memento he’ll keep forever, but won’t ever need to wear again.

—

Ω

**Author's Note:**

> So a friend challenged me to tackle the Kakashi/Naruto pairing, and as I'm a sucker for rarepairs this is what I came up with. :) I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Kudos and comments appreciated! Find me on twitter: @erisabesu3 <333


End file.
